Jun 10, 2012

Angel hair tossed with summer zucchini and tomatoes fresh from the garden. The perfect meatless meal you'll be craving again and again. Serve this with plenty of Parmigiano Reggiano!

Hope everyone had a great weekend, I was away in Seattle for a few days for the Blogher Food Convention so I thought I would share one of my older recipes I love from the archives, perfect for this time of year. This is easy to make and ready in under 30 minutes.

In a large pot of salted boiling water, cook pasta according to instructions.

While pasta is cooking, in a large saute pan, heat pan on medium-high flame, add oil when pan is hot. Add garlic and shallots to the pan and saute about 1 minute. Add zucchini and season with salt and pepper. Cook about 2 minutes, add tomatoes, crushed red pepper flakes, parsley, chicken broth and adjust salt and pepper. Stir for another minute. Remove from flame.

Drain pasta when done reserving some of the water and and toss the pasta well with zucchini. Add pasta water if needed and serve with grated Parmesan (optional).

I make this ALOT with fresh baby spinach leaves or with fresh steamed asparagus and the family LOVES it. I hadn't thought to use zucchini but I am so gonna try this! It's budget friendly. I also use whole-grain pasta, mostly penne (the kids enjoy the different shapes) so I vary it. Looking forward to this recipe!!! PS - I've been referring to your blog for menu ideas when I do my menu planning! This week, turkey zucchini bite thingies and zucchini lasagna are in the plan for this week!! Can't wait! LOVE your website! ^_^

I LOVE this site!! This is my first time here I have lost 98 lbs on ww but have started to fall off the wagon this site has gotten me excitted again. Only one problem what are the serving sizes of this dish?

I have made several zucchini recipes this week and also passed your website off to a fellow friend on WW. Everything looks delicious AND easy! Have you considered a cookbook? Pictures and great recipes equals a WINNER in my book.thanks for sharing!Kim A

Gina, YOur blog is a lifesaver!! The pictures are beautiful and everything I've made so far (5-6 things) has been absolutely delicious. I'm so grateful for your willingness to share your recipes and ideas!!Thanks a million!!Laura

I am making this tonight for dinner! Since finding your site (last week) I've made 3 of your dishes and they have all been wonderful! (baby red potato salad for a bbq on Sunday and it was a hit, manicotti on Monday, delish and hubby approved, and crock pot baked potatoes last night. wonderful!) Thanks for sharing your ideas! I also posted a link to your site on my blog! I'd love to add a button to my blog if you ever get one! :)

Served this last night with some grilled grouper - it was delicious and a hearty portion! I didn't have fresh tomatoes so added about 3/4 can of fire roasted tomatoes and also added a few spears of asparagus. I came up with about 6pp - will definitely make it again!

This was awesome...I accidently messed up and dumped the whole box of pasta in, then was in another world when I mixed it together (I had told myself that I would only use half the pasta), but had I not messed up it'd have been the best meatless pasta I've tried!! Thank you Gina!!

The recipe says to serve with grated parmesan cheese. How much per serving or total and is this amount included in points+? Thank you. Your website makes me want to lose weight just by looking at it. It is very well set-up!

Gina, I am super excited to make this dish! I'm a young student living on my own for the first time (gah!) and slowly learning how to prepare my own meals. This dish is simple yet sounds very tasty! Thanks for posting straight-forward recipes :)

My mother fell head over heels for this dish! I make it for her everytime she comes over, I used grape tomatoes the first time i made this (cause thats what i had around) and OMG they make all the difference!

This looks so simple and good! My boyfriend and I have been meaning to try a pasta dish without any sort of tomato sauce (it gets boring after a while). Thanks for the recipe, definitely going to give this one a go soon!

Another gluten free option... prepare with spaghetti sauce instead of rice pasta. That's what I plan to use. We have been using spaghetti squash in place of pasta since diagnosed with gluten intolerance. Results in less points, too!

Ok, so I made this last night and it was so yummy and "refreshing" if that could be the right word. My husband's one complaint about eating healthy like this is that he misses meat! SO...a side of sausage for him to add to his bowl and it was perfection in our house!!! Thank you for making eating enjoyable again!

I made my meal plan from your blog today, for the first time, and this was the first dish I tried. I used cherry tomatoes and added a little white wine. It was SO good. I've made something similar in the past and used lots of olive oil and butter... so I'm SO happy to find this one with much lower calorie content. Two thumbs up for using chicken broth instead! THANK YOU!!! P.S. Just started weight watchers yesterday. :)

I have made this dish twice and I love it. The first time I made it I followed the recipe exactly and was not disappointed. The second time I made it I added some large chunked jumbo shrimp. Absolutely delicious. I have made several recipes from this site and I have never been disappointed. Thanks Gina for some great recipes!!!!!

So I literally just rinsed my dish and put it in the dishwasher after having this tonight.

I did make a bit of a change - today, I'd cooked up chicken in the crockpot so I could shred it. So for this recipe, I used half as much zucchini, and replaced it with some shredded chicken.

After sauteing the shallot & garlic in half the olive oil, I tossed in the chicken and left it in the pan just long enough to get warm. Set that aside, put the rest of the oil in the pain and in went the zucchini. Once I'd added the tomatoes, broth, parsley & red pepper flakes, I put the chicken/garlic/shallot mixture back in.

Oh...my...goodness.

This is shooting straight up to the top of our "favorites" list here at home. AMAZING!!

Add us to the 'this is incredibly awesomeness' crowd! My kids gobbled it up too! I can just think of a million and one ways to tweak this...add grilled shrimp...use white wine instead of chicken broth...drink white wine with it...eggplant added? Thanks a gazillion!

This was amazing! I made this for my family and they loved it. The sweet of the tomato with the spicy red peppers was a perfect combo. I ribboned the zucchini and it was a big too long for my taste, but chopped up easily with a fork. Overall, it was a great summer dish, thanks so much!

Its saying its 8 pts for the whole 8oz of pasta. 4 pts for all 4tsp of the olive oil. The rest of the items are zero pts. It saying its 20 pts for the whole dish 20/4 is 5pts. Perhaps I am doing it wrong, but that is what it says.

I made this last night and my husband and I both LOVED it! Food texture seems to be important to me, and I really like zucchini and carrots as a side dish cut julienne-style. Plus, I needed to use up some of my tomatoes and zucchini from our garden. Using zucchini cut like this and combining it with pasta is a GREAT idea. The zucchini was still a little crunchy which I love. I will definitely make this again. Thanks AGAIN, Gina, for helping me on my WW journey and my new goal of trying to be healthier!

Gina, I have yet to eat anything from your blog that isn't fantastic!!! Made this for dinner and it was absolutely delicious! Your blog has truly helped change how my family eats, as well as to help shrink our waistlines! I can't believe I used to eat a lean cuisine for dinner each night for years!! Never again. Thank you for the wonderful recipe!

Wanted to share another "twist" on this that we've come to love (we've had this 4 times since my last comment!)

We've been serving this with chicken we marinade and then grill. We chop the raw chicken into small chunks sized for skewering, and marinade them for at least 8 hours (it usually ends up being for 24 hours around here). Skewer 'em up (don't forget to soak your skewers if you're using wood!) & throw them on the grill until cooked. We then serve the chicken on top of a pile of the pasta. It's a fantastic combination!